"You ok, Evans?" said James, still polite. They were walking down the hallway lined with compartments. Lily was about to ignore him and walk away or retort, but she was still getting over the weird sensation that had been taking place in her stomach. Not to mention the bit where I almost tripped and was saved by Potter before falling in my face.

"Yes, yeah I'm great." she answered breathless, still out of sorts from the incident. He looked on, concerned. Walking in silence for a couple moments, Lily realized something.

"Oh, I think I owe you a thank you." She said, sounding unsure and slightly embarrassed.

"You might." He answered, seeming to be amused. Lily looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. Her eyes had to travel further up than usual and met his face. His mouth was curved into a slight smile, shadowing the self-absorbed grin that played on his features ever since Lily first met James, when it waxed every year to a new astounding size. Lily was always irritably amazed at how much of an idiot he was and how his annoying grin would keep up every year.

But this smile was slightly different. It looked more polite and made her feel as though she just tripped again, but from a 40 story building, rather than a slow-moving train. Nonetheless, her irritable self broke through her presently mystified nature. Overgrown gloating git, she thought venomously probably waiting for me to start expressing some sort of perpetual gratitude at his bloody feet and praise him for his well-timing and devote the rest of my life to him. She had been trying to boil herself up, but she just felt disgusted at what she had conjured as a pathetic excuse of an incentive. Even so, it was hard for her to frame the sentence.

"Um…" she started awkwardly, and stopped walking abruptly. This would require all concentration. Lily saw that James stopped as well, and was now fighting the whim to smile. She almost glared, but saved herself by glancing away. She didn't think she would get through this any better if she looked at him.

"I-I sort of owe—damn—I'm…" Lily started and failed. James wasn't looking smug anymore. He seemed concerned and slightly…somber?

"I guess I'm…thank you? Ok, I am very thankful." She finally retched out of her mouth as though ripping out her own tongue. It would have taken just as much pain and anguish anyways, she reckoned.

He cocked his head to the side, as though thinking hard. Turning slowly toward her, he seemed to be fighting something. "I accept." He said, looking into my eyes way too intently. I stopped breathing.

Holding my gaze, he whispered "Additionally," Now, he leaned towards me. I could see every mixture of hazel in his eyes. "I am ever so sorry for making you thank me."

His smile grew as my own mouth thinned. He wasn't being outrageously rude, or even close. Actually, he sounded quite swe- SHUT UP.

"Who are you talking to?"

James sounded amused again. I didn't speak. Had he heard me?

"If it was to me, then I'm sorry for whatever I had said," he continued, eyes still amused, but a bit coldly now, making me feel…

"I-I wasn't talking too you." Stupid brain could talk, yes, but when it came to talking back, it wasn't smart or coherent enough to do two things at one time. Under James' aloof look, Lily felt small and insignificant. On one hand, she wanted to go to the nearest mental institution and check herself in. On the other, she wanted to say something nice. She shook her head, trying escape the sensation. She tried feeling insulted.

Before she could even put her thought into words or actions, James said, slowly "If you weren't talking to me, then… who?" As he uttered the last word, he raised an eyebrow ever so slightly, not upset in the least.

Blinking, she realized her insanity, or whatever it seemed to look like to James after she had uttered the last sentence, had made him curious. Why, insanity does seem useful at times. When it throws in the worst of scenarios, it picks you right back up. She then thought about how she would explain herself to him. But not without compensation.

"You heard that?" Lily said, quite stupidly for herself, in fact. James appeared just as surprised as Lily felt. Lily didn't say stupid things. She loathed them.

"Yes, I did." He said slowly.

Trying not to feel the stupidity growing up inside of her, she quickly said and soon regretted, "Well, I was just thinking of something and was saying shut up to myself, not you."

James, having gotten over looking surprised, said, "Why would you talk to yourself?"

"Erm…why do you want to know? That doesn't really concern you, now does it?"

Lily was back from her roller coaster, completely ready to retort without missing a step.

"The thought, or yourself that you were arguing with, does it have anything to do with me?" He was smirking now.

Heart hammering, "Why would it, Potter?"

"Well, you see, I was talking to you at the time, and you were listening, of course, like a good Head Girl, so I just figured that you were thinking something around the lines of what I had said to you."

"Actually, I didn't catch what you had said."

"Too busy talking to yourself?"

"What?!?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Tone of your voice tells me it was something."

"Back to what I had said…"

"What did you say!"

"Evans, calm down, I'm about to tell you, aren't I?"

"No I want to know what you previously said."

'That isn't really important."

They hadn't exactly been shouting, though the conversation wasn't what you called pleasant. More like chaotic. Thankfully, the rain pouring outside drowned out their slightly raised voices. Lily had stopped holding her suitcase, and was now crossing her arms, while James stood there, tall and well built, with his hands in his pockets.

Lily, finally losing again (what was wrong with her today?!?) muttered, "It may not be important to you, but go on anyways…"

Now, smirking again, James begun to recount what he had said earlier, which Lily had not missed at all. Why she had said otherwise, she still didn't know.

"Well," he started, now leaning against the window beside her, the proximity not bothering Lily in the slightest, only making her notice how tall he was, but she didn't move away nonetheless.

"I had said that I was sorry for making you thank me," he said, eyes on Lily.

His eyes weren't amused, or even mesmerizing. Okay they were that last bit, but Lily had knew he wasn't doing it on purpose. The hazel eyes were truthfully waiting to see Lily's reaction to the almost insignificant statement. Lily exhaled slowly, looking at anywhere but James. He had actually said that? As oddly nice as that statement sounded, there was a slightly arrogant approach to it. But that was natural, and Lily wasn't bothered by that. It made he feel…like she was about to jump from that building again. Lily, after thinking this, wanted to throw herself from the window, ashamed that James had made her feel this way, if even for a second. Lily, as suicidal as she may seem, wasn't a lunatic. She was quite sane, thank you.

And sane people answer other sane people, do they not? A sly voice said arrogantly in the back of her head. Fine, she was a sane person with a rather manner-less voice in the back of her mind. She exhaled again, biting her lip. Carefully ignoring the question, so she wouldn't answer out loud again, she mumbled, "It wasn't that hard."

James chuckled softly. "You should have seen you face."

Then, a peculiar thought came to Lily. Suddenly, she smiled sweetly, catching James off guard. In truth, it made him step back. Hmm, should do this more often if this is the reaction I get. "You didn't hear me out James, she smiled. Cautiously looking on and maintaining his composure, James listened to Lily, who was now leaning against the window, as she had been since he had repeated what he had said earlier.

"I said, that it wasn't hard, mainly because it wasn't needed."

James' eyes narrowed.

"What wasn't needed?"

"My superfluous thank you from earlier."

"So I didn't grab you as the train moved, is that what you're implying?"

"No, but you didn't need to."

"To what?"

"Save me."

"So, you didn't want me to save you." He stated quietly.

Though surprised at how (should she even think it?) hurt he sounded she answered, quite untruthfully, though she would never utter it so, "Not particularly."

James looked at Lily almost scornfully, making her light-headed and confused, at what she was feeling. However, she remained on her ground, as uneven as it were.

"Why? Are you the type to want to kill yourself, I never thought of you that way, Evans"

Still portraying that dangerous smile, probably forgetting that she had, she answered, "I wouldn't have, Potter. Who ever died from a slow moving train?"

Not looking as stupid as she had hoped he would; actually you could add incredulous to the array of emotions on his face, some even Lily couldn't name. And guys were supposed to be unemotional. "Even slow-moving trains do cause injury to off-guard people. Or does a concussion not serve as an injury?"

The shark remarks cut Lily, but only slightly. She was wondering, however, why she had even opened her mouth.

Sparks were flashing in James eyes now. "All that I got from this reasoning of yours is that…You would have rather gotten an injury than having me save you, or you think that you would have gotten a hold of some sort of balance, since we all now how perfect Lily Evans is."

James hadn't been spitting, shouting, or even staring in dislike. He seemed intimidating, but not as if it had been directed towards her. He looked at Lily in disbelief, hurt, which surprised Lily and something that had her knees trembling not unpleasantly, though her brain was telling her that it was unpleasant. Lily didn't so confident now. Her mouth had just retorted a useless excuse: that she had been ungrateful for him saving her from an accident. Lily was now sagging against the wall, while James…looked more like a god than anything else. He wasn't angry-looking; he looked at her in a way that made her feel like two-year-old.

James suddenly subdued, yet was showing a range of emotions. "Which ever excuse is true, it doesn't matter. They are both so utterly ridiculous."

Before leaving, he looked at Lily again, this time, past her, making her feel unimportant. "I guess the Lily I knew was never there. I didn't actually know the Lily everyone else did. The Lily I cared about."

With that, he walked down the hall slowly, and Lily closed her eyes and slid down against the wall. She hadn't broken down because he had said all of that, no; her feeling of despair had been born far from it. Before he turned, he met her eyes for almost a minute. What she saw almost choked her. Remorse, disbelief, bitterness, and above all, disgust.

She finally realized that James had grown up over the summer. Only she didn't.